Clients

We are fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with world-class consumer and enterprise clients, including:

“Marty delivered an extraordinary workshop to my product development team at Comcast. The format was highly interactive, the content was truly compelling, and the delivery was super clear and concise. He was able to get my whole team on one page around the approach to software product management, and he gave the team actionable items to work on. I highly recommend this workshop to other product teams who want to bring their users inspiring products.”

“When it comes to Product Management, Marty Cagan knows his stuff. Our Product Managers come away from his workshops with armfuls of new insights and techniques. Highly recommended!”

– Pete Deemer, Chief Product Officer, Yahoo!

"Marty was an excellent leader for our recent product management training. Based on interviews with key team members, he customized a 2-day workshop which really took the organization to a new level. Most team members commented that it was the best training they had attended. Marty is the industry leader in the latest techniques for creating innovative products that drive value, and any organization looking to create high-performing teams would benefit from his talent. Finally, he doesn't just train the organization, but he demonstrates that he really cares about setting you up for success with follow-on advice and ongoing consultation. It is well-worth taking the two days to train the team."

- Jamie Iannone - EVP Product, Barnes and Noble.com

"Martina's workshop was excellent. Her energy and insight were inspiring and kept us all engaged for two whole days - not easy! She's able to draw from her own experience and that of clients she has worked with over the years. Combined with a real gift for creative approaches to marketing challenges, her experience and energy made the workshop a worthwhile use of time. We walked away with something concrete that's helping us think differently about how we approach marketing."

"Marty has a hands-on understanding of how things work, and how to get things done. When guidance grows out of practical experiences -- like Marty has -- it is eminently more useful and instructive. From planning to pushing pixels, Marty's advice was helpful."

– Rob Kalin, Founder and Chief Creative Officer, Etsy.com

“I want to thank you for what had to be one the best training courses that I or my staff have ever experienced. The quality and sensibility of the content, coupled with your approach, which is experienced, authoritative, thoughtful and humble all at the same time, is truly unique.”

– Justin Yaros, EVP Product, Kelley Blue Book – kbb.com

"Martina showed immediate interest in our perspective and concerns as well as hopes for a more successful approach during difficult economic conditions. She delivered a thorough report that exceeded our expectations and incorporated responses to all of our original concerns as well as easily implementable recommendations for change. We immediately instituted her recommendations and are optimistic of the future’s business results."

- Peter Beruk, Senior Director, Compliance Marketing, BSA

"Marty delivers professional, comprehensive and sophisticated training sessions for any product organization. Through interactive workshops that both reinforce core techniques, and introduce new methods, we have strengthened our productivity, teamwork and innovation. Most importantly, Marty has helped us deliver a better product to our customers. I strongly recommend Marty’s workshops to anyone building or managing a world-class product organization."

- Michael Rose, SVP Product, GL Group - glgroup.com

“Distribution of independent films using the Web is increasingly becoming a new frontier for filmmakers. Martina not only opened up this world to us, but blew the roof off. Within a very short period of time Martina's marketing strategy used all things web - YouTube, Facebook, My Space, Google, Yahoo, and email newsletters. We instantly had an enormous fan base, and it helped us find a distributor. Not only did she make a massive impact on our distribution, she is always a joy to work with.”

– Peyton Wilson, Producer & Director, Speed & Angels

“SVPG ran a great workshop. Marty masterfully balanced key product management principles, great new techniques and examples that bring them all home. Great class no matter what your experience level. Well worth it! ”

– Jim Denney, VP Product Management, TiVo

“Kyrie brings a unique combination of talent, experience, and energy to any user experience design challenge. Her thoughtful approach to understanding customer needs and working collaboratively with designers, product managers, and engineers has enabled her to help many companies raise the bar in creating great user experiences.”

– Peter Elarde, VP Product Marketing, Shutterfly

“Martina has such a deep understanding of products and marketing that she was able to make incredible impact in a short timeframe, providing a clear, concise consumer portal plan along with direct advice regarding implementation and launch strategies. She is a great pleasure to work with and her deliverables were nothing short of outstanding”

– Jeff Treuhaft, SVP Content and Messaging Business, Verisign

"Martina has the unique ability to extract meaning and clarity out of the jumbled engineer/entrepreneur brain that resides in my head. I've met with Martina for just an hour once every two months for the good part of a year and every time I walk away from the meeting feeling like I have a better handle on my own business, even though I spend 24/7/365 thinking about it! She asks the right questions and her expertise shines through with every word of advice she gives."

- Nate Weiner, Founder, Read-It-Later

“Marty is very gifted advisor, coach, and product leader. His product management workshop is by far THE BEST training available for product teams. We were truly inspired by Marty and his approach to creating great products. I would highly recommend Marty to product leaders that are interested in achieving great results.”

– Paul Nadjarian, SVP Product & Marketing, OnForce

“I can't rate Marty and SVPG highly enough. The true test of great training is when a team feels empowered to take on the lessons given and put them into full practice. Marty's left an indelible impression on our working practices that I know will continue to be felt for some time, and has left us personally empowered and more confident in our day to day roles. Expect to be extremely challenged, but if you really want to learn from the best, you can expect expectation-busting lessons in all aspects of Product Management with pin-point relevancy to your staff, industry, and products.”

"Prior to engaging with Martina, Chatterfly was in quite a bit of disarray when it came to strategic marketing for both the company and product. Martina possess the tenacity, optimism and abstract thinking skills to assist us in getting to where we need to be. Martina is truly talented...she has the amazing ability to easily synthesize the marketing objective at hand and seamlessly correlate it to a value-added deliverable. Her foresight is simply invaluable."

- Charles Michael Yim, CEO, Chatterfly

"Chuck helped us through some very difficult architectural changes necessary to handle our very rapid growth."

– Jay Herratti, CEO, CitySearch.com

“Killer product management is absoutely crucial for all start-up companies, and Marty and SVPG bring that to the table in spades.”

– Debbie Meredith, JAFCO Ventures

“I worked with Kyrie and the terrific product design teams she recruited and managed at SGI and TiVo. Kyrie has the skill and experience working in all of the disciplines required for world class product development: interaction design, visual design, prototypes, user research, market research, beta/field trials, product and program management - even software release management. Her work in all of these disciplines through many successful product development cycles means that as an industry consultant she really knows what she is talking about! Her workshops benefit from the many years of gritty war stories she has accumulated. Her broad experience working with many different engineering & marketing teams with different skill sets, personalities, and management styles makes her extremely valuable as a highly leveraged design consultant. And beyond all of this, she is also a cheerful, fun person to work with who injects energy and optimism into design teams – she really lights things up!”

-- Bob Vallone, EVP of Product Development at 3VR

"GameDuell is a product-centered company that runs one of the world's largest gaming communities. A superior user experience is our key advantage. For a company like ours, where innovation, great products and fast development are critical success factors, the cost of getting Marty Cagan is nothing compared to the opportunity cost of not getting him and the value of his input. In addition, everybody in our team loved him. His very professional, fun, and non-patronizing style immediately generated team buy-in. We have learned a lot and gained speed as well. I highly recommend Marty for all 'good-to-great' product companies!"

“Kyrie is fearless when it comes to doing the right thing. She is unwavering in her desire to build the best experience for the user and will push everyone else involved to make that experience happen. If you are in a position to bring Kyrie in to help your organization, I would highly recommend it. The experience she has at places like TiVo, Shutterfly, and Rearden will ultimately benefit you, your organization, and your product!"

– John Townsend, Director of Engineering at Rearden Commerce

“SVPG excels at understanding what the end user wants and is able to teach that skill to product teams. They are keenly focused on building outstanding products that have a real impact on the business metrics.”

– Shri Mahesh, VP Product Strategy, eBay

Kyrie is an extraordinary talent. I was amazed at how quickly she got up to speed on the investment management industry and could translate complex financial concepts into intuitive online user experiences. Her work reflects a rare mix of big picture strategic thinking and detail orientation which resulted in across-the-board positive customer feedback. She was an invaluable contribution to our team.

– Elena McCarron, VP Product at Structural Wealth

“I had the pleasure of working with Kyrie for several years at TiVo, where she was the leader of the User Experience group for the Emmy-Award-winning TiVo user interface. Kyrie is an exceptional designer, and is able to balance the desires of users against the limitations of technology. From my point of view, though, the most impressive aspect of her work at TiVo was the way she shared her design philosophy with others, and built a team that continues to create easy-to-use and intuitive designs.”

– Brian Beach, Principle Engineer, TiVo

"Chuck is that rarest of people--a truly great CTO. He has a deep understanding of technologies at the highest level as well as the ability to integrate that knowledge into a business's strategy. He recruits exceptional people and manages them well. Chuck has an exceptional perspective gained by running top ten websites. I intend to draw on Chuck's talents now and in the future"

– Peter C. Horan, CEO IAC Media and Advertising.

“Marty is great to work with. Our company, Good Technology, used Marty and his colleague Martina for an extended Product Management training class. The result is that we have a team that is much better trained, more productive and more effective in developing and managing software products. I highly recommend using Marty, Martina and SVPG for your organization.”

– Rick Osterloh, VP Marketing and Product Management, Good

“Marty is not only a seasoned expert on all aspects of the often ambiguous discipline of product management, he is also excellent at engaging with start up teams and providing inspiration, tools and really practical help. His workshops are a combination of customised tutorial, real time consulting and effective team building. I would highly recommend Marty and SVPG.”

- Judy Gibbons, Accel Partners London

“Marty is THE best product leader I have ever had the pleasure to work with. He is incredibly focused on process, execution, discipline, and alignment with business goals. His management style is one of conviction, integrity, and focus. If you have the opportunity to benefit from his experience ... take it.”

– Mike Kerns, Founder and CEO, PROTRADE

"Marty delivered a game-changing two day workshop for my team that not only helped lay the groundwork for a new product management process, but also established more effective communication between product management and engineering. Marty's abilities to determine the root cause of issues and provide clear guidance on problem elimination have proven critical for the success of current and future products. We have thoroughly enjoyed working with him and look forward to ongoing collaboration and the fruits it will bear."

- Neville Letzerich, VP/GM Transactional Content - EMC Corporation

“Chuck is a world class technology leader. Drawing upon his substantial experience, he’s helped us uncover hidden risks, and ensure alignment with the business’s objectives. Highly recommend!”

- Erik Kellener, CTO Evite.com

“After being an SVPG newsletter groupie for many months and forwarding Marty's articles to literally dozens of business colleagues, I had the pleasure of meeting Marty and bringing him in to do his Product Management Workshop for my entire team. The feedback was overwhelmingly positive; here's one example: "Tracy- Thanks for bringing Marty to us. Marty's workshop was the most relevant, inspiring, and applicable business-related event I have EVER been a part of...I'm going to take action on several of Marty's recommendations." We were so pleased with the workshop that we had Marty back to do one of his "Jump Start" sessions with a smaller product team focused on a new product launch. Again, it exceeded my expectations and we continue to utilize and build on the output of that session internally. I highly recommend Marty and both his Product Management and Product Jumpstart workshops. In addition to the wealth of real world experience Marty brings to his consulting work, he is seriously one of the nicest, most approachable guys I've ever met. Working with Marty is like having a ringer on your team.”

“I have been consistently impressed with the insights in Marty's newsletters, and the content of the materials on the SVPG site. The workshop was also full of great insights, and everything he presented resonated with what I knew about product management. I highly recommend SVPG to colleagues!”

– Benji Jasik, Director of Product Management, Salesforce.com

“The key to our sales growth was Martina’s best practices for web-based product marketing. Her insights, planning, guidance and brain dumps allowed us to penetrate a techno-phobic industry with scalable and real-world marketing programs. Because of Martina we have a more focused brand that works for us and not against us! Her valuable knowledge and expertise would be a benefit to any company interested in developing web-based product sales campaigns and longer-term brand awareness.”

- Walker Thompson, VP Sales and Marketing, The Magellan Network

“I have known and worked with Chuck through his career at Travelocity, Gateway, eBay and PayPal. He is one of the best technology and product development leaders in the country.”

– Phil Terry, CEO , Creative Good

“An efficient product development process is absolutely crucial for companies competing in today's rapidly changing e-commerce world. For that reason, we brought in Marty for his workshop and we found it to be a great investment for AbeBooks. His knowledge of the Internet and the concepts behind product management for the e-commerce environment was very impressive. It became very obvious that he's been there and done that, and speaks from experience.”

– Hannes Blum, CEO. AbeBooks, Victoria, Canada

“Kyrie has a gift for user experience and a methodology to match. Our product, our PM team and our company are constantly improving thanks to her experience and her ability to succinctly share that experience. Her passion for the user comes thru in everything she does. She is a great find. We and our customers thank you.”

- René Lacerte, CEO and Founder, Bill.com

“Marty is one of the few people in the valley who really understand the art of product management AND can explain it to others. SVPG was the perfect company to train our product managers at Shopping.com. We are delighted with the results!”

– Sarah Leary, VP Product Management, Shopping.com

“Our environment is very challenging - we are growing rapidly, our engineering team is using Agile methods, our products include a platform for service providers, a consumer internet caliber end-user experience, and an enterprise class solution for spend management. Marty has first-hand experience with each of these very different types of product, and he provided a customized workshop for our team of product managers, designers, and engineering leaders. The team loved the experience, and feel much better prepared to face the challenges our rapid growth and success will bring.”

– Aaron Greco,VP Product Management, Rearden Commerce

"We weren't sure about bringing in someone from so far away, as we have a different market and different language, but what we discovered was that the challenges of very rapid growth and building a great consumer web site cross these artificial boundaries, and SVPG exceeded our expectations in every way. It was an excellent investment in our future and in our staff."

– Jurgen Boehm, CMO, ImmobilienScout24, Berlin, Germany

"Marty's ideas come from the real world, not from academia, and not from the old world of custom or shrink-wrapped software products. It's invaluable for a web-based software company like us to learn insights from the leading online companies that only a person with Marty’s first-hand experience can provide.”

– Gilberto Mautner, VP Technology, Locaweb, Sao Paulo, Brazil

“As a company we had long given up on classroom training as most of our experiences had been boring with little practical use. However, after reading the SVPG newsletters we decided to try SVPG's 100 Essential Lessons in Product Management workshop. We were extremely happy with the result. I would definitely recommend SVPG to any company, especially in a country like India where true product managers are hard to find.”

– Girish Mathrubootham, Director, Product Management, Chennai, India

“Marty is incredibly talented and articulate. Even those who have been in the field for 20+ years can learn from SVPG’s experiences. The training session was interactive and included lots of relevant industry anecdotes to make the curriculum interesting. After the training, our team is approaching its jobs and responsibilities from a different & improved light; it was a worthwhile investment!”

– Yuan Huntington, VP Marketing, NetManage

"It's hard to imagine a better use of time for a product organization than to invest in product management training from SVPG."

– David Weiden, Partner, Khosla Ventures

"SVPG has the special ability to make insightful contributions at the strategic level in terms of product planning, while retaining a deep understanding of the important nuts-and-bolts process and people issues that contribute to overall success."